To think this takes not vaccinating to a whole new level

[Swanlaked]

DD has a child at school who has cancer. The school sent a letter home asking all parents to please think about giving their child the MMR if they haven't had it and also to inform them immediately if any child was in contact with chicken pox.

One of the mums at the school is still refusing to have her 3DC vaccinated. No health issues it's big pharma/poison/conspiracy theory crap

AIBU at this point to think the school should seek removal of the children and tell the bloody thicko to find another school for them?

"my cousin is a doctor who opposes vaccination."

If that is in this country and the cousin tells their patients not to vaccinate they may be struck off

Whao, how charming, I thought you considered that the opinions of medics were important. But it turns out that we talking about people who are not entitled to form their own opinions.

But it's correct isn't it?

The professional opinions of medics are only valuable in the context of externally audited scientific understanding, working knowledge of evidence based medicine, research standards (where applicable) complying with peer-review and international research protocols, and of course the Hippocratic oath and basic integrity.

Andrew Wakefield was kicked out for very good reason. The case for the childhood vaccination schedule in the western world is beyond scientifically compelling. In the UK I most certainly expect a qualified GP to be struck off for recommending that a parent skipped vaccinations unless that child had a medical condition that contraindicated it.

Is your cousin a qualified GP working in the UK?

Dybil: We take everything on trust that is not either directly observed ora mathematical truth. But vaccination is different to all other medical interventions. It's unique, and relies on parents taking risks with their children, both for their own children's benefit and for the public good. Fr parents to do this, they must be convinced that the risk to their child is vanishingly low. And in fact in order to do it for the sake of other people (like flu) vanishingly, vanishingly low. It's essential, because the aim is near universal coverage of the target group - overwhelmingly infants and pre-schoolers (exceptions noted, HPV etc), the overwhelmingly majority of whom are not sick.

Parents need to have very good reasons to agree to take a risk with a medical intervention on a child who is not sick and may never get sick. They have to be told that the risk factor is low - otherwise they simply won't do it.

Unfortunately - and unique among medical interventions - there are many thousands and thousands of reports of children who were not sick but became sick after the medical intervention i.e. vaccination. If all of these were true, they would skew the risk factor upwards so radically that parents wouldn't engage any more. If half of them are true, there'd be the same result. But if any of them are true, at all, the risk factor can't be trusted.

So parents have to be convinced that none or virtually none are true. Thus other parents' accounts of vaccine damage are dismissed and ignored, however much they might seem to merit further investigation. The credibility of the parents is smeared and discredited - they are 'overwhelmed with grief', it's just anecdotal, they're looking for something to blame, they're looking for money, they just saw something else in the papers. But there are some doctors and researchers who agree with them. That's an even greater threat to parental trust and vaccine uptake. And trust in that risk factor MUST be maintained. So these professionals too must be discredited, bullied, shamed, scorned and excluded. This public trust in the benefit/risk ratio of vaccines must at all costs be maintained.

Which leads us to wear we are: and the bullying, shaming, scorning and calls for exclusion of ordinary parents who don't wish to engage with this medical intervention. There is plenty of evidence that the risk factor shouldn't be trusted. Some of it is in the same clinical trials that are supposed to convince us to join in. Some of it in research papers; some from non conforming professionals; lots and lots from parents. Quite a lot can be found in what couldnt possibly be deiberate flaws in epidemiological studies designed to prove safety.

So parents need to be prevented from looking seriously at any of that evidence. How? By ridiculing any idea that the risk factor isn't to be trusted. By scorning any one who questions it. By discrediting any professional who seeks to inquire further.

This is why it's important. Pro-vaccine enthusiasts need everyone to join in. anti vaxers aren't campaigning (generally) for other people to be prevented from joining in. They just want to maintain personal choice.

But pro vaxxers need everyone to believe in a certain level of risk. When actually there are good reasons not to. If only they would admit that the risk level can't be trusted then we could all get along with deciding for ourselves.

^
Excuse me : and the weight of evidence, information available and so on, you are refusing to acknowledge that it's your own bias as that guides you as to how to 'weight' the various pieces of evidence^

What, apart from the bit where I specifically have done just that by noting the role of each person's understanding of risk in the decision making process.

I don't get what's in it for you with the constant misrepresentation, I really don't.

Evaluating the evidence, considering what gaps or problems there may be in the evidence, and deciding on that basis is not faith.

Believing that there are significant enough numbers of genuine unreported vaccine damage to invalidate the cost/benefit analysis of vaccines is probably closer to faith, relying as it does on a proposition for which there is little to no evidence. I still wouldn't call it 'faith', unless you would not be willing to change your opinion in the face of any new evidence.

I think you are right in not knowing the exact risks. For we are different and our personal risk factor might be quite different to the one published.

However I do think on the balance of the evidence I have available, vaccination is a good bet. I have personal knowledge of a few children damaged from childhood illnesses, but none from vaccines. As most will have been vaccinated, and most will not have had the illness itself, my educated guess is that vaccines are safer than the illness.

We cannot know the truth. Science is very much about best guess.

You don't need everyone to join in. Herd immunity can drop to 75% in some illnesses before it's a problem.

Head : then why the constant shaming and bullying?

Jazzy: there is no misrepresentation. Your own bias decides which evidence you give weight to. The public shaming, and insistence on a certain risk factor, means that most parents are not exposed to all the available evidence.

It's Jassy, by the way. Yes, no one has suggested otherwise. It's the case with every decision a person makes, and I've said that. Suggesting I had denied it or refused to acknowledge it is either accidental misrepresentation or an intentional lie, I'm not clear which?

You talk about 'bullying' but yor behaviour on this thread towards others has been... interesting.

80s child, there are mumps outbreaks in fully vaccinated populations too due to waning immunity and certain strains of the mumps vaccine not being as effective as originally thought.

LadyConstance, most figures focus on measles deaths - mumps and rubella are very very rarely fatal. The main issue with rubella is CRS and mumps wasn't a notifiable disease until the MMR was introduced in 1988. So you won't see the same sorts of trends that you see with measles cases/deaths with records going back to the 1940s (pre NHS and access to antibiotics).

I didn't suggest mumps and rubella cause deaths, but the fact is that reported adverse consequences from mumps and rubella have fallen in the same way as reports about measles since the introduction of MMR, and those benefits need to be taken into account in the same way as the fall in measles-related serious illnesses and deaths when looking at the whole picture. We also need to take into account the indirect consequences in relation to rubella in the form of injury to the babies of pregnant women who catch rubella.

LadyConstance, as I pointed out, mumps wasn't a notifiable disease until the MMR was introduced in 1988 so when you say that reported adverse consequences from mumps have fallen since the introduction of the MMR - what are you basing that on?

Comments about how pp's cousin doctor who is against vaccinating, should be struck off has me ROTF.

Seriously people? The hypocracy is breath taking. I am a robot, I must trust science and medical professionals, unless they disagree with me, then I will not trust them.

Science is about listening to both sides of the argument, and considering the facts for yourself. I have now rtft and I have seen nothing here to convince me to change my mind.

All I see here is a bunch of parents, who are trying to do the best for their children and society. On both sides of the argument.

As I said before, vaccine shedding is real, so running out and getting kids vaccinated with live virus vaccines could cause those that are immune suppressed much more damage than not, as they will absolutely be exposed to that virus afterwards.

People don't take their dogs out of the house until after they've had their vaccinations at 6 weeks. It's insane that human vaccinations aren't compulsory.

One more thing, vaccines do not offer 'immunity' only contracting illnesses naturally, and overcoming them naturally offers full lifetime immunity.

This is why outbreaks are common in vaccinated persons, and why vaccines need topping up at regular intervals. Vaccines are designed to trick your immune system into thinking you've already fought and won that particular virus.

I wonder how many people that are pro vaccine, are currently fully vaccinated as adults?

In countries where mumps cases are recorded, there has been a massive fall following MMR. In Canada, for instance, between 1950-54 the average annual rate was 249, and the peak was 43,600. Between 2000-2004, the average annual rate was 0.2, and the peak was 202. Before MMR was introduced, mumps was recorded as the most common cause of viral meningitis in the UK and occurred in 15% of patients with mumps. It is no longer the most common cause.

There is a map out there showing where measles and mumps outbreaks have happened in the last few years (I can't remember where it is or I'd post a link) - all outbreaks have occurred in areas where children are routinely vaccinated. The recent mumps outbreak happened to kids already vaccinated. There is already proof that many vaccinations (including whooping cough, measles, chicken pox, mumps, flu etc) are not 100% effective, so WHY, as a responsible parent would I put unnecessary and harmful chemicals (like formaldehyde) into the body of my child, increasing Their chances of getting cancer? In the US a child is expected to have something like 64 vaccinations, and if the parents refuse then their kids can be taken away - is that what you pro-vaxxers are working towards here?

As I said before, vaccine shedding is real, so running out and getting kids vaccinated with live virus vaccines could cause those that are immune suppressed much more damage than not, as they will absolutely be exposed to that virus afterwards

Viperama can you share more evidence on this one? I've been looking but I can't come up with anything peer reviewed.

Also, can you clarify what you mean by 'common' when it comes to outbreaks among vaccinated people? Of course, no one here has claimed that vaccines are 100% effective, but in still interested to know what test you're applying.

There is already proof that many vaccinations (including whooping cough, measles, chicken pox, mumps, flu etc) are not 100% effective, so WHY, as a responsible parent would I put unnecessary and harmful chemicals (like formaldehyde) into the body of my child

What do you mean 'there is already proof' - nobody has ever claimed all vaccinations are 100% effective, it's not some kind of a big secret that has recently been discovered. It's still a hell of a lot better than nothing.

Of course researchers have their bias and desired outcomes and no we should not blindly trust in anything. if 99,..9% of researches tell me that vaccines are safe and effective (no, not 100%, nothing is, but still safe and effective), there must be some very compelling reasons to think that they are all liars and we should instead trust the 0,0..1% who tell us otherwise.

Nobody has ever said that vaccines are 100% effective or 100% risk free.

I do wish people would stop deflecting the discussion.

There is a map out there showing where measles and mumps outbreaks have happened in the last few years - all outbreaks have occurred in areas where children are routinely vaccinated

I have a map too. The blue one is low vaccination coverage areas, the red is measles cases. Interesting, wouldn't you say? www.eurosurveillance.org/images/dynamic/EE/V18N36/Knol_fig3.jpg

"So it was peer-reviewed"

CHRIST ALMIGHTY. It was peer reviewed and rejected by a majority of his peers. (and the Lancet publicly apologized for publishing it). That is what peer-reviewing is, it doesn't mean anyone's saying "anything that has been peer reviewed is valid". It's like saying "well, I did the exam but I failed, that means I got the qualification because I was examined".

"One more thing, vaccines do not offer 'immunity' only contracting illnesses naturally, and overcoming them naturally offers full lifetime immunity."

Nope. Lots of things don't always give you full lifetime immunity even if you contract them naturally (whooping cough, for one), and I think a lot of the live virus vaccines in particular offer long term immunity (my rubella vax from 25 years ago is still trucking along, or at least it was last time I was pregnant). I don't know where this idea that vaccine immunity "isn't immunity" comes from, it's the same bloody immune system producing the same antibodies.

I've only ever seen anything suggesting viral shedding from the live flu, rotavirus, varicella, and oral polio vaccines, and even then it's a matter of taking extra precautions with immunocompromised people, not that the patient is as infectious as someone who actually has the disease. I don't think there's any evidence of shedding from the MMR.

This is interesting on the subject: luckylosing.com/2011/10/13/vaccine-shedding-time-up-for-another-vaccine-myth/

LadyConstance, those are cases, not 'reported adverse consequences'. Canada removed mumps from its 'notifiable disease list in 1958 and it didn't go back on the list until 1986. This was after the MMR had been introduced on a one-dose schedule (1975-1996).

(It is true that in some cases naturally acquired immunity is stronger than vaccine-induced immunity, but the tradeoff is, well, getting the disease. Which may cause serious problems/death.)

My children can no longer have vaccines due to reactions and I won't play Russian roulette with them but I give them a healthy diet, lots of vitamin C and D to protect them, I never rely on heard immunity I just make their immune system stronger, in fact they are stronger than any fully vaccinated child I know, plus I know 3 children to have had measles all vaccinated, so it has made me doubt the effectiveness of the vaccines...like penicillin, some react to vaccines it's not one size fits all.

No one should ever rely on heard immunity, you need to have a healthy diet along side it and remember just because a child is not vaccinated does not mean they are full of diseases, pretty much most non-vaccinated children are healthy and hardly ill, the MMR does not have a long life span so remember once it wears off then does that make your hold full of disease?! Most the childhood vaccines that we had as children does not protect now (I think rubella is the exception) you only get lifetime immunity when you catch the disease.